The Death of the Idea called India

In 1947 when the much coveted independence was earned from colonial rulers, i wonder whether our founding fathers had envisioned an India that we see today. What went wrong in these 65 long years is anybody’s guess. The malaise has creeped into the fabric of the nation so deep that it is impossible to deny it was never a part of us originally. Tall claims of secularism meet the dust every year on this date, the ill fated 6th day of December.

Courtesy ShafPrince Dot Com

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind they said. Proponents of modern shining India thought better. A crime committed in the medieval Mughal era needed to be avenged in the Twentieth century. The vandalism matched only by the destruction of Bamiyan Buddha statues a decade later, the demolition of Babri Masjid is perhaps the biggest blot on the idea of India. 6 December 1992 stands immortalised by history as the day when India was strangulated to death at the alter of religious politics.

Concept of God was created by man. Whether you subscribe to the concept is a different matter, but you cannot deny the right to faith to those who do. But if faith leads us to override the sanctity of God for the sake of our faith, alarm bells must ring. If your faith is “shaken” and “offended” by a mere painting or a book, you better stop believing in your faith! If your faith propels you to think that God cares about a few acres of land in Ayodhya, when he can reign over the whole world, one needs to slowdown and ponder.

The choice is for us to make. Should we let the idea of India be killed in front of our eyes, or take a stand in favour of our nation?

Excellent post: well said.
This may sound incredibly cynical, but I believe there are too many with a vested interest in promoting the conficts you describe. Remember: all wars are economic wars. Maybe it’s less a case of avenging Mughal crime and more a case of preserving 21st century profits.
Rob.

There is recorded video evidence of the infamous leaders urging followers to demolish the structure.. its 19 years and yet there is no one who has been brought to justice by the courts. these people should be put behind bars and barred from being in public life forever – unless action is taken against such people, politicians will always take us for granted and play with the sentiments of the gullible. no crime is perhaps worse than playing up one citizen against another in the name of religion/caste/etc – unpatriotic to say the least!

close to a decade has passed since that incident happened, And we are not even close to providing material justice to the community. sad, but true that we have put the whole idea behind India in danger. one can only be optimistic about the future.

Unfortunate may be but 6th of Dec ’92 is not the only time when our country was witness to rampant lawlessness in the past… Let us not forget the savageries of Direct Action day or the Partition of our country or the systemic persecution and ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits through the 1980’s to name a few, apart from, of course, the scourge of Terrorism perpetrated by likes of SIMI.

Some may also take solace from that fact the India fares much better than her South Asian counterparts when it comes to protecting the rights of the Minority community. That while 50% Muslim Malaysia is an Islamic Nation, 80% Hindu India has not wavered from her faith in Secularism.

The point is not to justify the crimes of those who welded the sledge hammers on the 6th of Dec, but to give a balance to what seemed like a one-sided portrayal of the many challenges faced by the nation in the past. It is not our failings in the past that kills the idea of our nation but the constant word play on an event that happened before 50% of the nation was born, thus confounding the possibility of reconciliation and moving on, which does the same.

We should look to reconciliation and to our future and not try to constantly gnaw at an old wound. Most of those who lead the “movement” are either dead or soon to be dead… think it is high time that we also moved on and stopped marking 6th DEC in red letter in our calendars and blogs…

“The point is not to justify the crimes of those who welded the sledge hammers on the 6th of Dec” this line itself proves the point you are justifying “past wrongs” with another wrong! And how can Direct Action Day be compared to 6 December?

The kashmir issue is much more diverse and we can reserve another blog post for that! I know many Kashmiri Pandits who live IN Kashmir even after the “ethnic cleansing” and have said how wrongly the pandits who migrated misreport facts for political gains.

The larger issue is, 6 December 1992 changed the course of history in India and there is NO denying that fact! Justifying it as “balancing out past wrongs” would be an insult to the idea of India itself. That is the job of religious fundamentalists not free thinking citizens.